Moog Music has announce that the Drummer From Another Mother (DFAM), originally only available to Moogfest attendees, is now the second production member of the company’s Eurorack line.

DFAM is first the addition to the ‘Mother’ line of semi-modular analog synthesizers that began with the Mother 32 analog synthesizer, and diverges from the traditional drum machine with a more hands-on approach to percussive pattern creation.

To demonstrate the range of sounds of the new instrument, Moog Music enlisted three artists from New York’s Discwoman collective, DJ Haram, Stud1nt and Umfang, who appear in the video (above).

Activated by an easy-to-use analog sequencer, DFAM’s sound begins with a white noise generator and two wide-range analog oscillators. DFAM’s voice is then shaped by a classic Moog Ladder filter with two selectable modes: Low Pass and High Pass.

Starting next week, from Jan 15- Jan 24, 2018, Moog Music will offer free, hour-long DFAM workshops facilitated by Alissa DeRubeis and Felisha Ledesma of S1 Synth Library to the west coast subscribers of the Moog Music Newsletter.

Happy to: variation in the pattern comes from the CVs you apply to the parameters of the sound generators. Since the sounds themselves are not static, like a sample playback drum machine, you need not have as many steps to still have an interesting, evolving drum pattern.

That’s the problem though. It takes up too much HP for what it offers, when you consider that the sequencer is essentially a gimmick. You could fit a Varigate 8+, Basimilus Iteritas Alter, and Audio Damage BoomTschak in that much space.

An 8-stage voltage source is no gimmick – people have been making use of them as sequencers, envelopes and more for decades.

If you don’t like the collection of features that the DFAM offers for the price, that’s fine – but the alternatives that you suggest would cost nearly twice as much money. At least for me, the price of Euro modules has been much more of a limiting factor than width!

It seems like it would be a cool module to go along with a Mother-32 or for someone who maybe has a few semi-modulars. I just don’t see many people putting them in a Eurorack case, as it seems more designed to fit into the 3U 60 HP M32 format.

When sequencing drums using CV, I personally would be much more likely to use a single polyphonic sequencer. Using a separate sequencer (and only 8-steps, with no presets, at that) for a single drum line would just be an encumbrance. The Run/Stop input can be useful in this way, but I nonetheless almost never find myself using the the Mother-32’s sequencer. The DFAM’s rudimentary sequencer, which while providing some immediacy is also largely redundant, takes up half of the module. I just think a second voice would have been more useful.

Its a drum machine with only 2 channels and only 8 steps. The demos on the vid only got remotely interesting when 2 were used together. So for the price of the vermona drm mk3 you can have 25% the number of channels and a sound that is 75% as good as the 1st 2 channels of the drm. Wi
With its 8 step sequencer it is basically a toy, Moog really spent a lot of time making the bare minimum that they can get away with.

Each step has velocity and pitch, as well as global trigger, start/stop, tempo and advance. I’m curious why you feel you need more steps or triggers or some kind? This in combination with an outboard sequencer to provide different pitch, velocity and other CVs would make an extremely powerful rhythm setup. Does this instrument seem “limited” to you?

How refreshing is it to get an announcement for a product thats shipping. Like a breath of fresh air! Loving the semi-modular products, feels entry-level in a good way. The mother-32 is awesome so I’m hoping to see a complete line of these. The design even has a “I aint fucking around” look to it.

And how about this idea of announcing the instrument when it has “begun shipping to distributors”.
What a refreshing change!
Thanks Moog for a cool little instrument – can’t wait to hear where creative folks take this…

Sounds great. Glad to see the line expanding. Patchable, sequencerless minitaur next? Sequencer would be fun but in the hope of keeping it in the same price range as the other mothers, something’s got to give.

Although very nice to fiddle around with on a lost Sunday afternoon and some like to show off “I have a Moog” in the living room as some kind of social or artistic status… but … If companies are able now with very small SMT, FPGA, integrated analog/digital logic components to cram multiple FULL ANALOG voices, lot’s of MIDI functionality, digital/analog effects controlled analog circuits (temperature/aging) into very tiny boxes for something at this price or a little more, wonder why with all this discrete analog Moog has re-released in the past few years, now has lost the ability to develop embedded controller software and develop innovative products. (P.S Minimoog owner).

Just came out of the loo to hear exactly the same sounds my rear end produced (starting @ 5:37). For me moog is the equivalent of apple (which I never got to get it). it seems that indeed is design for some specific people with define characteristics in their personalities.

As this seems to be acoustically pleasant for some people without me understanding exactly why, for them I may be consider in the “redneck” spectrum of the coin and I do find more musically interesting the drums module from HEXINVERTER Électroniques for instance.

It’s not “pleasant” sounding in the way ambient music is pleasant sounding, but just imagine some hip-hop vocals or some FKA Twigs style female vocals laid over the beats in that video. In that context this thing sounds freakin’ amazing. So yeah the sound’s not exactly universal, but it excels in a particular way.

Moog equivalent to Apple? That’s a bit far fetched just considering the size of the companies. Plus Moog assembles everything right here in the USA.

The drum modules from Hexinverter are great (I own 3) but one module or those modules alone is not going to come close to getting you what the DFAM has.

The DFAM has its limitations and it certainly isn’t right for every modular user but, like the Mother 32 it is a lot of bang for the buck. It’s another nice entry point to modular and a pretty good match for the Mother 32.

Personally I’d love to see Moog release more individual eurorack modules instead of or in addition to these semi modular, eurorack mountable synths but people asked for the DFAM after Moog introduced it at a Moogfest as part of a VIP build experience. They listened. I’ll bet they sell plenty.

They’ve both definitely done some innovative things in their days, but both companies market their brand (handcrafted, made in america, made with ‘real’ materials, etc) as much as the products themselves.

I think your Harley analogy is right on. I understand the “made in American” classic vibe… which is why I own a dot com modular (which offers all the great stuff about Moogs at tremendous value). And like H-D, I also believe Moog (largely, but not completely) markets to suckers who don’t any better (nothing against vintage Moog… I own a Mini and would love a Polymoog if it worked!)

As for the Harley… well, I like a loud, air-cooled V-Twin too… which is why I own a Ducati. 🙂

Can anyone explain to me what the what the artists in the video are talking about? Pushing against what? Changes happen when you change things? I would definately buy one of these just so I could turn it full blast to drown out these people talking.